Known in the art is an internal combustion engine which is provided with an exhaust turbocharger which has a compressor and an exhaust turbine, which is provided with an exhaust gas recirculation system which recirculates exhaust gas which is exhausted upstream of the exhaust turbine in an engine exhaust passage to downstream of the compressor in an intake passage, which arranges an exhaust purification catalyst downstream of the exhaust turbine in the engine exhaust passage, which arranges a hydrocarbon feed valve upstream of the exhaust purification catalyst in the engine exhaust passage, which carries precious metal catalysts on exhaust gas flow surfaces of the exhaust purification catalyst and is formed with basic exhaust gas flow surface parts around the precious metal catalysts, which injects hydrocarbons from a hydrocarbon feed valve by a predetermined period at the time of engine operation, and thereby removes the NOX which is contained in the exhaust gas (for example, see Patent Literature 1). In this internal combustion engine, even if the temperature of the exhaust purification catalyst becomes a high temperature, a high NOX purification rate can be obtained.